2007-06-14

Hamas vs Fatah

A very interesting situation here, making it difficult to know who to barrack for.

Gaza is an especially useful piece of territory. It has well-defined borders, and no-one else is laying claim to that territory. It is effectively an independent country. And that is independent of the West Bank too. There is no particular reason why this territory can't be turned into a clone of Switzerland, with a wonderful liberal democracy. Exactly what needs to happen to get from here to there?

Power comes from the barrel of a gun. Who holds the power currently? Hamas's guns are superior at the moment. However, this would all change if someone provided Fatah with air cover. And part of the condition of providing the air cover could be that Gaza and the West Bank are converted into liberal democracies. And that means the government can't teach hatred of Jews anymore, it must instead teach how bad religious bigots are, etc etc (ie message 666). They might agree to this, but I'm not sure we should actually trust them. Perhaps a better idea would be to insist that if they don't want to be ruled by Hamas, they instead need to hand over power to the "Independent Palestine" party, which IIRC is actually a decent party, which is why no-one (3%) voted for it! So it instead needs to be imposed.

However, the advantage of Hamas taking over is that Gaza and West Bank would be configured the way I want them configured - as independent territories. At a later date, these 2 independent territories, both liberal democracies, would be in a position to form a union on whatever terms make sense. Perhaps Egypt, Gaza, West Bank and Israel would all join the European Union. Joining Gaza and the West Bank makes no more sense than joining all the Arab countries together. If Hamas takes over Gaza, Fatah will presumably wipe out Hamas in the West Bank, and the two states will develop independently. The trouble is we really don't want a Hamasistan. It needs to be toppled one day, and we should be considering that future mess, today.

Perhaps what we should do is tell the "Independent Palestine" people to create a new party, "Independent Gaza", and to go and set up shop in Gaza. The Fatah gunmen in Gaza are told to take orders from the new party. A new flag is created for Gaza, and this time without the racist Arab colours. And then "Independent Gaza" gets to work. The Fatah gunmen are instructed to wipe out Hamas, at whatever cost, using air support from Egypt or US or Israel, or perhaps all 3. Or even from Iraq. The US would probably be the logical choice. It would probably be good to also send in 1000 Iraqi troops to protect the "Independent Gaza" government, and to vet and train a decent Gazan police and army to replace the Fatah thugs (just as the Northern Alliance goons were replaced over time also).

However, I can't see Fatah agreeing to that. They'd rather chop off their nose to spite their face. So, it looks like we'll get to see Hamasistan soon. The Party of God running God's State. Yeah, right. The extent of this Orwellian world we live in is simply phenomenal. It's not the end of the world though. It just means that the Gazans will be that much more relieved to see US forces when it becomes Gaza's turn for toppling. I'm tossing up whether the toppling order should be Iran-Syria-Lebanon-Gaza or whether Gaza should be left to the very end of world liberation. The advantage of leaving it to the very end is to make sure we have cured the fundamental problem of religiously-bigotted Muslims only caring about the Palestinians instead of the other problems around the world. When we can see the Muslims caring about the Palestinians no more than whoever comes before them (Bhutan?), we will know that the fundamental problem has been solved, and we no longer need the Palestinians as a litmus test. So liberate, and job well done.

Regardless, whatever happens give us more data. Seeing the Palestinians stuck in mud for so long is pretty useless. Just like watching decades of Arab dictatorship. We can't see the effects of various stimuli. And it is understanding human mentality that will give us world peace. Not surrendering to terrorists as the left would have us do.